Failure of district heating

A heating network works like a large-scale central heating system. It transports heat from heat sources to heat consumers, e.g. heat from one company to another, homes, offices and/or a swimming pool.
If there is an outage in district heating, the supply of heat via a heat distribution network either partly or completely stops. The difference between district heating and community heating is in the scale of the system. Community heating is heating for a few buildings or a small area, using heat from a boiler or cogeneration plant, for example. District heating works on a much larger scale, with networks stretching over several kilometers and heat supplied from large installations.

Causes

Consequences

Information operations

What can you do?

BEFORE

Check the insulation of your pipes.
Make sure you have blankets at your home.
Look into the possibility of temporarily heating your home with an alternative heating system, such as an electric heater in just one room.

DURING

Close the doors of rooms you don't use or rarely use.
Ask friends or family to take in vulnerable members of your household.

AFTER

Allow the network time to stabilise. In other words, do not turn up the heat immediately.

Impact and probability

The figures relating to probability and impact describe a significant failure of heat networks. The BNRA theoretically describes such a scenario as follows:

A failure lasting at least one day affects a part of the city or a small urban area.

There is a significant reduction in capacity, but the indoor temperature can be kept at a relatively comfortable level.

How should you interpret these results?

Within the BNRA, experts assessed three scenarios for each risk: considerable, major or extreme. On each page, you will find the results of the scenario with the highest score based on the combination of likelihood and impact. This does not mean that this scenario will occur or is the most likely. Read more here about how to correctly interpret the results.

Probability

Strong

Human impact

Very weak

Societal impact